Carrie Serwetnyk: Life in the Rio Favela: rifle shots, Criminal Minds and football

RIO DE JANEIRO – Today we ducked from rifle shots, met a team of forensics who were investigating the murder of a gay tourist and ran into some monkeys along the way.

It is our break here in Rio as we keenly anticipate the quarterfinals. We are all a bit exhausted. I imagine fans around the world are catching up with their laundry.

I went to the closest favela near the end of Leblon beach where we are all residing.

Apparently we are in the rich part of town, which boasts the famous Flamenco Club, a swanky shopping centre, a road I call Robson Street for its high-end storefronts and a nearby lake with fifteen million dollar condominiums.

Criminal Mind type police were investigating the stabbing death of a gay tourist. (Carrie Serwetnyk)

There are tours for $70 USD but I prefer to be more spontaneous.

I had my camera around my neck and the first group of locals in a van that passed by told me told me to go back to Copacabana Beach.

For $1.25 I squeezed into another van with some residents and we climbed along a narrow winding road past colourful homes and businesses that appeared stable. One of my great pleasures was finding a few boys kicking a ball in a concrete playground with expressive murals. Traces of litter and an old rotting wet mattress spoiled the encapsulated football court. The controversial Pacifying Police Unit cars surrounded the courtyard. Around a few corners, a state of the art training facility was built for the community via FIFA and at least a hundred kids were playing organized football with instructors on several surfaces.

Two boys kick around a ball barefoot in the cement playground. (Carrie Serwetnyk)

I met a small group of French guys who were being guided by a Brazilian friend who had lived in the Favela. We climbed a trail through the jungle that led to what is considered the best view in Rio except that we were in the clouds at the peak. What surprised me most are the sprawl of favelas next to rich high rises, all of which had a beach-front view.

At one point, we all had to duck for cover when rifle shots rang out. Our guide said it was likely the police.

On our way down, we met a team of investigators who were patrolling a scenic corner with machine guns. I asked them if they were like the “Criminal Minds of Brazil and they said more like the CSI. Their presence was quite intense but friendly.

Since the police issue is quite a hot topic and I don’t speak and this is my first time in Brazil, I would like to share a conversation with an English speaking protester I spoke to across from the Fan Fest prior to a match. He was with a mother whose son had been recently murdered.

The PPP Pacifying police units station surrounds the playground in the favela. (Carrie Serwetnyk)

I asked him, why are you here?

“We have groups of people who live in the favelas. We have families with young children they lost due to police violence and many favelas here have been removed because of FIFA restructuring problems due to the World Cup and the whole security structure – how they try to give security to the World Cup means they will send more and more police to the urban periphery

It means more and more people will die. They are not prepared, they are very violent, they torture and they kill and they hardly ever get prosecuted in the judicial way so most policemen who have committed crimes, they are free until today. ”

How many people died?

“You can say right now that one or two young people die every night in Rio. In the media it is always presented as conflicts with drug dealers. The thing is there are thousands of people living in favelas, they go in, they don’t differentiate between who is who and they don’t use politics to imprison someone they just go in and kill because they can, because they won’t be persecuted.”

What does this have to do with the World Cup?

“Well right now, when the World Cup was announced there was a new project how to police in the favelas. The (PPP) Pacifying Police Units. They are from the military police. They are very corrupt, they use their status to make money out of territorial negotiations, traffic of arms, money, they imprison someone and then they free them for some amount of money. We have a very complicated relationship with the military police and with the poor population in Brazil. Now we have a project that is different, we have community police. It means many policemen in the poor areas in the northern zones very far away from the cameras of the international press, that’s where they deal with people in a very different way than you see here.”

A future Brazilian football star trains at the new state of the art training facility built by FIFA funds in the favela. (Carrie Serwetnyk)

What do you see as the future after the World Cup?

“We are very concerned about the future because before the World Cup it was really bad so we don’t see it getting better. There is a different problem in Brazil, we have militias in the favelas, usually you have firemen, policemen, you may have ex policemen. They take territorial control. We have the PPP but it transformed so they take control of the areas. There is a risk that more and more favelas will be repressed by military. There is one we are really concerned about, but in general the entire situation is unstable.

Here is the protestor I interviewed with a mother who lost her son due to the police violence in the favela. (Carrie Serwetnyk)

Once we take the cameras away it is quite possible the state may act in an even more harmful way than they have already acted when they were in front of international media.”

What do you hope to get out of this?

“I don’t think there will be anything done. We have some organizations on the international level that do support human rights but we are supposedly in a western democratic capitalist country so Brazil is friends with everyone. We need to talk about what is happening. The World Cup has to happen so FIFA doesn’t want bad news. The people in power in other countries don’t want bad news. What they will try to do is to say after all it was a great party, a great World Cup. All the media is trying to send out this kind of message. Globally, we are in a situation where we use the idea of bringing peace to justify using arms to kill people. This is where in Brazil they are against using the urban periphery. Its just one of the many problems we have in Brazil I don’t think there will be much done on an international level. There hasn’t been much done so far.”

Walking through the favelas, I felt safe. I was surrounded by a group of men, one who had many friends in the community who were happy to see him. I shook hands with many of the residents. Our guide told us, the locals rarely commit crimes in the favelas, they don’t want problems with their own people. The criminals often wait till they are down at places like Copacabana beach.

I took some photos and returned back to my Leblon life.

Favelas are a short distance from the beautiful Leblon beach, one of the most expensive quarters of Rio. (Carrie Serwetnyk)

Vancouver’s Carrie Serwetnyk is the first female inductee to the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame, a former national team member, founder of EqualPlayFC.com and now attending her seventh straight FIFA World Cup. Serwetnyk’s trip to Brazil is sponsored by flightcentre.com and the B.C. Government Employees Union.